25 October 2024 – Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Tam Schilling
Two years and two days since the band last played Brisbane, Australia’s favorite California Glam Metal deviants Steel Panther made their return to Australia last week, on tour with their new record, On the Prowl. Marking their eighth show in Brisbane in twelve years, the night was expected to be a chaotic, horny, mess of a show, and it did not disappoint! And who better to throw in to open these shows, other than the legendary guitarist John 5, to give the crowds a good working up, with his brand of rock and metal greatness.
John 5 was out first to a solid reaction. The set itself didn’t have much talking. Just pure guitar wankery in the purest and best form. A special shout out as well to John’s drummer, Alejandro Mercado. The dude is an absolute machine gun live, and super fun to watch. It’s hard to know sometimes what the names of certain songs are with an instrumental act, but I was able to catch two songs from John’s own catalog, in ‘Que Pasa’ and ‘I Am John 5’. The back end of the set though was filled with covers, including him recording a covers record I believe, and catching the crowd audio singing along to ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen. We got teases of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Walk’, before the set closed off with a monster Motley Crue medley of songs, which included ‘Live Wire’, ‘Too Fast for Love’, ‘Shout at the Devil’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, and ‘Kickstart My Heart’, before sending the set out with a massive sing-along to ‘Home Sweet Home’ to close it out.
John 5 – Fortitude Music Hall – photos by Tam Schilling
After a quick change over, glam metal icons Steel Panther rocked out onto stage to ‘Eyes of a Panther’ to a massive reception from the audience. After the track ‘Let Me Cum In’, (which required a re-do), Satchel and Michael Starr legit threw out about 10 minutes of stand up comedy quality banter that I just was not able to keep up with the jokes. But if you know Panther well enough, you can get a rough idea of what was being said. My favorite bit though was talking about boobs, and how gay guys like boobs because “everyone sucks on boobs when they are babies”. I don’t know how much of this stuff is scripted when they walk out, versus what is off the cuff banter, but they are one of the best crowd work bands in the world.
Steel Panther – Fortitude Music Hall – photos by Tam Schilling
By this point we were hitting the 25 minute mark with only two songs played, so we got back into the tunes with ‘Asian Hooker’, and ‘Fat Girl’. Starr and Satchel traded barbs about having sex with each other’s mothers, before ‘Friends With Benefits’ played, which was gut-wrenchingly funny. ‘Death to All but Metal’ popped the crowd huge, and ‘1987’ brought the crowd down a little with a ballad. The best part of this song, was they redid the ending about 12 times because the lighting guy kept messing up the lighting cue to the finish.
Steel Panther – Fortitude Music Hall – photos by Tam Schilling
The band pulled a lady from the crowd named Abby, and the band did some more crowd work improv where Starr, Satchel, drummer Stix Zadinia, and bass player Spyder, all sang a verse of lyrics for Abby, about different ways they wanted to have sex with her, before ‘Girl from Oklahoma’ kicked in. Satchel then invited a bunch of women on stage for the obligatory play through of ’17 Girls in a Row’. There was flashing, dancing, girls making out, and grinding aplenty as the band ripped through the track. The girls stayed on stage for one more song, ‘Community Property’, before being escorted off stage as ‘Party All Day (Fuck All Night)’ closed the main set. The encore saw ‘Gloryhole’ close out a brilliant night of debauchery in the Fortitude Music Hall that Brisbane won’t forget anytime soon.
Steel Panther – Fortitude Music Hall – photos by Tam Schilling
